Samsung, HTC, and Toshiba all make the same April Fools’ joke

While it may seem like holiday season or a presidential election would be the time of year journalists mark on their calendar as a planned “sick day” to avoid work, it’s actually April Fools’ Day. The day is news’ arch nemesis, where everyone is too busy making jokes to make news. Even if there is some exciting news to announce, it’ll be kept under wraps for the following day for fear that it would be taken as a joke if announced on the first of April. However, every now and then amusing news comes out of April Fools’ Day. This time around, the state of the mobile and wearable computing industry has been starkly revealed: Samsung, HTC, and Toshiba all made the same exact April Fools’ joke — a wearable smart glove.

Yes, three companies that make similar real products — Samsung and HTC more so — all made what they thought was a super clever, believable-for-a-minute joke about a wearable smart glove. It’s indicative of the current state of the tech industry in general — everything made “smart” — as well as the mobile industry’s current obsession with smartwatches.

HTC announced the Gluuv, a smart glove; Samsung announced Fingers, a smart glove; Toshiba announced Digit, a smart glove. All of which are, obviously, gesture-based devices that perform most of the functions of smartphones and smartwatches. The three companies even overlapped in the design of the fake devices. Both Fingers and Digits — overlapping in naming convention as well — sport sensors and devices, such as a camera lens, on your fingertips. Meanwhile, both Fingers and the Gluuv tack a smartphone screen onto the glove itself; in Fingers’ case, it’s built in, while the Gluuv simply attaches a phablet onto the wearable.

Sure, Samsung, HTC, and Toshiba are all in the same scene, so that increases the likelihood of making jokes with the same theme, but — as far as Samsung and Toshiba go, at least — they do make many different products with which to do some April Fools’ vamping. If you thought the mobile industry is currently in a lull, stuck looking for the next big thing even though the last big things (smartphones and tablets) are relatively new, the coincidence of multiple companies making the same exact joke supports that notion. Feel vindicated.